Breaking Down the Wall
There is a wall that divides the physical world from the dream
world. This division is the fundamental feature that keeps us all from
entering the lucid dream state readily and easily. The division is
mysterious, daunting and historically has only been crossed by a few
lucky or talented people. The information herein opens up this
experience to practically anyone who is willing and able to try, and
the experience allows us to ask, “What is it that creates this wall in
the first place?” One popular answer is that this wall is created by a
loss of consciousness; when we go to sleep we simply lose
consciousness and the ego ceases to exist. I have serious doubts
about this theory. In my view it is not consciousness that fails us, it is
our memory. No memory results in a loss of identity but not lack of
consciousness. Based on personal experience, I do not agree with
either dream theory presented in the beginning of this book. I believe
we are continually dreaming throughout the night. I believe our
consciousness is always continuous during every instant of our
existence. I believe it is our memory that breaks down during sleep
leaving us with almost complete amnesia. It is no coincidence that
the best lucid dream triggers are powerful memory boosters. Today’s
dream theories are based on the premise that when people are
awakened from deep sleep, they don’t remember their dreams.

Researchers extrapolate this to mean that they don’t dream
during deep sleep, as if the ability to remember and the ability to
experience were the same thing. The Tibetans believe it is possible
to hold on to consciousness during deep sleep and to actually
remember it when you wake up. If we are to become the best that we
can become with our lucid dream development, we must learn how to
break down this wall. I have developed an exercise that is designed
to do just that.
Most people rarely remember their dreams. Night after night
we enter a dream world filled with adventure and mystery, yet
morning after morning we have absolutely no recollection of it. Most
lucid dream enthusiasts keep a dream journal to try to break down
this wall. Trying to remember your dreams does help and I do keep
an active and up to date dream journal. There is another exercise
however, that is at least ten times as beneficial. The wall that divides
the dream from the physical is two sided and just as it is difficult to
remember your dreams in the physical; it is equally difficult to
remember the physical in your dreams.
At the beginning of every lucid dream I practice a few minutes
of “physical recall”. I have found that, when using the supplement
approach to lucid dreaming, factual kinds of information are easy to
recall, much easier than when no supplements are used. This is
probably because both acetylcholine and norepinephrine boost
memory and the best lucid dream triggers either boost acetylcholine
or norepinephrine levels within the brain. Information like my name,
address, family members’ names and birthdays, even my credit card
number are easily shouted out. The challenge comes when dealing
with experiential memories. Trying to remember anything that I did
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that day is much more difficult. Ask yourself what you had for
breakfast and you may find yourself standing there in the dream with
your mouth hanging open saying “uhhhhhhhh”. This ability can be
drastically improved with practice, and as it improves you will find
yourself having more and more high level lucid dreams, even on
nights when no supplements are used. The approach I use is to think
about a specific event that I want to remember as I am getting ready
to enter a lucid dream. I purposely don’t try to remember or rehearse
all of the details; I just try to place the event firmly in my mind. Then
when I get to the point that I am seeding my visualization, I do so by
giving myself short visual snapshots of different parts of the memory.
After I enter the lucid state I keep seeding the dream with the same
kind of visual snapshots. This transforms the dream into a
reenactment of the memory. It is an amazing experience. If left
unattended the dream will naturally go off on some tangent but if you
keep dropping the seeds it can snap the dream back to acting out the
memory. This undeniably leads to the best recall of any event
because you actually relive it instead of just remember it. Doing this
exercise on a regular basis actively breaks down the wall that
separates the two states. You will find that you are remembering
dreams in great detail even on the nights that you don’t use
supplements and you will find that you can start to recall more and
more of the details from your physical life while in the dream. When
you really start to remember your physical life while in dream, you
naturally start to have lucid dreams much more often. It becomes
easy to recognize the dream state. This exercise also has a
significant impact on dream recall. Understand that vivid sensory
experience and vivid recall are not synonymous. Performing this
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exercise while you are also actively trying to remember your dreams
when you awake, acts to break down the wall from both sides and
once the wall starts to fall, lucidity goes way up.

Thomas Yuschak
Advanced lucid dreaming: The power of supplements